Facebook Discussion Of "Counterproductive""Name Calling"&"Immature""Ad Hominem" Attacks

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• Fred Maske But isn't designating a population ("Trumpistas") as hostile to American values exactly the same as the pic above? Would that be saying that anyone who supports him or voted for him is Un-American?
  
  The thing is, the character that Trump plays absolutely IS antithesis to our ideals of leadership in a Constitutional Republic. But that "worst angel" is EXACTLY the strategic leader needed to solve a puzzle like uniting the Korean peninsula. There was NO WAY either side of the divide would be able to propose a peace or accept coming to the table to negotiate peace without losing face. The shitbag persona that Trump portrays is so hostile, unpredictable, and seemingly dangerous and unstable, it provided the perfect opportunity for both North and South Korea to say without ridicule or losing face, "Hey, we need to get together and figure something out because this guy is NUTS. The world will understand." NK was an asset of dark powers, no more.
  
  I wouldn't call myself a Trumpista in any way, I just recognize valid and efficient (if profane) strategies from The Art of War as they play out. And unfortunately at this time, our better angels have been taken advantage of, deceived, and set up to be made fools. I hope this is a long-term operation. I hope Bernie is the next phase of it. Today's Superman may have to have included political opinions alongside race and religion since it appears nobody else these days will. Rock and/or roll!

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  • Zach Zimet Just responding to the first part of what you said, I do agree with the spirit: using dismissive, antagonistic, name-calling to try to make some sort of point seems counterproductive and just plain immature.
    
    But to be fair it's not the same as the things listed in the comic panel: supporting Trump and his political agenda is an adult choice, while race/national origin are not chosen at all (though religion is probably about in the same category).
    
    I fully agree with attacking Trump and his agenda, just on the basis of facts and without stooping to ad hominem.

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  • Alan Archibald You probably know the quip: "A liberal is someone who doesn't know enough to take his own side in a fight." 
    
    Fact: The barbarians are inside the gates. 
    
    And even if we succeed in throwing them out (a very "iffy" proposition), solipsist/narcissist Trump will make it his business to stoke America's long-dormant Civil War and could easily succeed in making that smoldering conflict permanent by provoking clampdown by the "good guys" who (might) succeed in sending him packing. 
    
    Sometimes ad hominem attack is not just acceptable but necessary - particularly when "the hominid in question" is both a vile, deceptive, destructive ideologue and a vile person to boot.
    
    Yes, the frank admission that one's beliefs are "adult choices" is a good starting point for many (perhaps most) political debates. 
    
    Even so, Hitler, Mussolini and Trump's "adult choices" deserve to be attacked not only because they're philosophically, ideologically and inhumanly cruel; the champions of these choices also deserve to be attacked as "people who embody evil" which I define as "delighting in deliberate destruction for destruction's sake." 
    
    Clearly, all generalities eventually "break down." 
    
    Still it is "generally true" that Trump and his followers are indistinguishable from those trolls who delight in falsehood and the mangled decontextualization of truth because they never learned "how to think" and are too indolent to start now. Better stick to the simple-minded sound bites that served them as middle school bullies and queen-bee-wanna-bes.
    
    Like Trump (and like Roy Cohn who taught The Deplorable One to never back down, to never admit wrong) "The Troll Team" doubles down (and triples down) on epistemological offal because - starting with Nixon's "Southern Strategy" - American conservativism cultivated a Base reminiscent of Hitler's "volk,""The Good Germans" who could -- in Adolf's words -- be persuaded that "heaven is hell, and hell heaven." https://www.quotes.net/quote/42332
    
    Isaac Asimov also put it well: http://paxonbothhouses.blogspot.com/.../isaac-asimov...
    
    These deliberately benighted Know-Nothings are out to destroy Liberal Democracy - not the American political movement which bears that name, but the form of governance that emerged from the 18th century European Enlightenment which -- despite rife shortcomings -- is the heart and soul of "the last, best hope of earth." https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liberal_democracy
    
    At the moment, the bastards have the upper hand.
    
    But I will not go down without a cri de coeur. https://paxonbothhouses.blogspot.com/.../lincoln-we-shall...

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    QUOTES.NET

    Adolph Hitler, Mein Kampf: By means of shrewd lies, unremittingly…

    Adolph Hitler, Mein Kampf: By means of shrewd lies, unremittingly repeated, it is possible to make people believe that heaven is hell -- and hell heaven. The greater the lie, the more readily it will be believed.

    
    

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